>“It would have been nice if they did this in 1985,” Elliott said. “If the government does what I think it’s going to do, this is going to give airlines a license to reduce space even more. I don’t see the consumer benefit.”

The obvious consumer benefit is cheaper flights. Smaller seats mean lower costs, and competition should force airlines to pass the savings on to consumers. If they're colluding to keep the savings to themselves, that's a failure of anti-trust law, not a failure of seat size law. I don't see why the government should force people to pay extra for luxury.